Student essays, scholarship committee members' notes, and other writings reveal interactions between a group of modern-day students at an exclusive New South Wales high school and their strange connection to a young Irishman transported to Australia in the early 1800s.

Fourteen-year-old Dan Cereill's life is turned upside-down when his father announces he is gay and leaves Dan and his mother with nothing, forcing them to move to an aunt's house, Dan to enroll in public school, and his mother to try to start a business, but the top thing on Dan's list is kissing Estelle, the girl next door.

Six determined Australian teenagers try to find their missing friends while continuing to resist the enemies who have invaded their country.

During her senior year in a Catholic school in Sydney, Australia, seventeen-year-old Josie meets and must contend with the father she has never known.